Siobhán Redmond and Forbes Masson to star in Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s production of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days

Pitlochry Festival Theatre has today announced the full casting for their forthcoming production of Samuel Beckett’s surreal masterpiece Happy Days, part of Alan Cumming’s inaugural season as Artistic Director.

As previously announced, the production will be led by the celebrated Scottish stage and screen actress Siobhán Redmond in the role of Winnie. Siobhán is best known for appearing on screen in Between the Lines, Two Doors Down, Death in Paradise, The Nest and Unforgotten. Her extensive stage credits include Hamlet and Top Girls (National Theatre); The Human Body (Donmar Warehouse); Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors and Much Ado About Nothing (Royal Shakespeare Company) and most recently The High Life – The Musical (National Theatre of Scotland).

Siobhán Redmond will be joined onstage, in the role of Winnie’s husband Willie, by Forbes Masson, one of Scotland’s most prolific and versatile actors, who recently starred alongside Siobhán Redmond in the hit Scottish musical The High Life – The Musical. Forbes Masson’s Theatre credits include the Jamie Lloyd productions of Much Ado About Nothing (with Tom Hiddleston), The Tempest (with Sigourney Weaver) and Richard III (with Martin Freeman); Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet (all RSC) and most recently Lear at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. His screen work includes The Crown (Netflix), EastEnders, Red Dwarf, Shetland and the much loved The High Life.

Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days is a hauntingly comic meditation on the human spirit, a renowned masterpiece that helped secure Beckett the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, and one that has lost none of its power since.

Everything is falling apart in Winnie’s life, yet she has never been happier.

Is Winnie’s cheerfulness resilience or delusion? Stark, unsettling, and darkly comic, Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days is a haunting exploration of the human choices Infront of as we face the unendurable

Happy Days was written in 1960 and premiered off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City on 17 September 1961. Over the years, the role of Winnie has been played by Billie Whitelaw, Felicity Kendal, Fiona Shaw, Dianne Wiest, Maxine Peake, Juliet Stevenson and Lisa Dwan.

Joining Director Roxana Silbert (Girls of Slender Means, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Adults, Traverse Theatre) in the creative team are Designer Emma Bailey (Six the Musical and Lear, Pitlochry Festival Theatre), Lighting Designer Colin Grenfell (Black Watch and Medea, National Theatre of Scotland) and Sound Designer Hugh Barbour (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Pitlochry Festival Theatre).